Television interview - Sky News AM Agenda

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Subjects: 2022 floods, National Emergency Medal

KIERAN GILBERT, HOST: Emergency responders, volunteers and support workers who were on the frontline of the February-March 2022 flooding disaster will become eligible for formal recognition. The National Emergency Medal recognises the efforts and sacrifice of those who respond to nationally significant events. The Governor-General has agreed to declare the 2022 floods, which devastated much of northern New South Wales and southeast Queensland, an emergency event so responders can be commended. Let's go live to the Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister Patrick Gorman, who's been at the event marking this announcement. Patrick Gorman, thanks for your time. This is this is good news for many of those responders. And let's be frank, many of them unsung heroes that never get any recognition.

PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER AND ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR THE PUBLIC SERVICE: Kieran what we know is that the people who volunteer or serve in the SES, these are people who do it because they really care about their neighbours and their communities. When they're out there day after day after day, during an awful natural disaster like the 2022 floods, they're not thinking about getting any form of recognition. But it is important for us, as the Australian Government, that we do recognise these heroes, they do deserve recognition. That's why I was very pleased that the Governor-General accepted my recommendation to make sure that we have a National Emergency Medal event to recognise these first responders. What this means is that any one of your viewers who knows someone who contributed during that amazing community effort to save lives, save homes, can now go and nominate someone for the National Emergency Medal.

GILBERT: It was a community effort. You're right. It was quite incredible what we saw. The mobilising of so many communities who don't do it for, for this sort of recognition. How many individuals are we talking about, though? Who could receive the medal?

GORMAN: We're talking about 1,000s of people across northern New South Wales and southeast Queensland. We don't know the full number. That's why we rely on state governments, local governments. 21 separate local government areas are caught by this recommendation. But it will be in the 1,000s. We've had the National Emergency Medal in place since 2011. In part, it was created to recognise those who helped in the 2011 floods, again here in Queensland. But since it's been created, we've had 78,000 outstanding Australians recognised through this process. So I'm expecting a very large number of nominations, which is right. And what we want to make sure is that we recognise everyone who contributed in those 2022 floods.

GILBERT: We've had some developing news this hour, Peter Dutton confirming he won't take a 2030 target to the next election. That would be something he would finalise in government. What's your reaction to that news?

GORMAN: I think it just tells us that Peter Dutton has no credibility when it comes to climate policy, but also that they're just not doing the hard work that an Opposition should do. If I think about what we did when we were in opposition, we outlined our target, we outlined our climate plans. Mr. Dutton is not doing that work. I saw a report in a newspaper today where his team were telling us they'd done costing for some 100 policies through the Parliamentary Budget Office, but not a single one of those policies has been released. Now they're telling us we'll have to wait. 'Trust us. Wait till we're in government and we'll tell you the details.' Now, Mr. Dutton has got form on this. When he was Health Minister he came into office without telling anyone the details of his cuts to Medicare or his proposed $7 Medicare GP tax. I don't think the Australian people trust Mr. Dutton to just leave it til after the election. If you believe in transparency you're upfront with the Australian people. You put your plans forward. And if Mr. Dutton does have 100 costed policies, maybe he could start by releasing just one.

GILBERT: Sophie Scamps is the Member for MacKellar, a teal independent, she says that she believes that the Coalition has given up on the teal seats. But Mr. Dutton with his language there and his message was very strong in targeting middle Australia. He says that he's not going to commit to some target that will crash the economy, and that he's going to help protect families from the impact of rising cost of living and energy prices. Isn't that a message that will resonate with many Australians?

GORMAN: Mr. Dutton knows that the jobs and economic opportunities for Australia's future sit along the path to net zero. That's huge opportunities in critical minerals. It's huge opportunities in Australia being a renewable energy superpower. And it's huge opportunities for the next generation of Australians. That's what we see. If Mr. Dutton thinks that his plans are so good that there may be some seats that he can no longer outline his plans or that he doesn't want to stand candidates in, well, that's a really interesting way of showing that you're confident in your plans.

GILBERT: Yeah, well, he didn't concede that, that was the claim made by the teal independent. Do you think that that assessment is right? That he's given up on those seats like that one formerly held by your friend, Jason Falinski?

GORMAN: I probably expect that the teals and the teal party will spend millions and millions of dollars in each of those seats, just as they did at the last election. While they might hope that there's less competition, I think we'll see as they start to ramp up their large amounts of spending that they've done, that we'll probably see they do acknowledge they're still in a contest. My view is that you never take any seat for granted. And I think most sensible parliamentarians always work hard in their electorates. They work hard showing that they're actually taking their local values and turning them into national results. That's what I do every day that I'm the Federal Member for Perth. But I do think that it's interesting that you don't see Mr. Dutton out there as much campaigning in some of those seats that he lost and his team lost at the last election. I haven't seen him doing that much in Western Australia and a bunch of seats that they lost in 2022. So I don't really know what their plan is.

GILBERT: Just quickly, almost out of time, Labor stumbled on climate change before. Do you think the electorate's moved beyond that and wants this settlement, this peace deal of sorts, to continue as opposed to another climate war?

GORMAN: I don't think Australians want the product that Mr. Dutton is selling. They don't want to go back to the climate wars that saw the Coalition when in government have 22 energy policies and not land a single one. And Australia fell behind the rest of the world when it comes to the transition to net zero. Australians know this is where the jobs and opportunities of the future lie. That's what we put forward in our budget just a few weeks ago. And that's the plan we'll take to the next election as well.

GILBERT: Patrick Gorman, Assistant Minister to the PM, thanks, appreciate it.

GORMAN: Thanks, Kieran.